Apparatuses have been developed for directing crops towards harvesting machines using streams of air. One device of this type, commonly known as a pneumatic header attachment or air reel, generally includes a blower mounted on the rear or back side of a combine crop cutting header where it is near the power shaft. Such devices are conventionally driven by belts from the power shaft. Typically a flexible air tube takes air from the blower forward to a manifold which runs across and in front of the crop cutting knife. The manifold usually has numerous downspouts which deliver air through nozzles at high speed to direct the crop back into the cutter and then into the auger conveyer. Considerable power is necessary to provide the volume and pressure of air required to accomplish this.
Some crops or crop conditions require much higher forces than are conventionally obtainable from such apparatuses. Two separate blowers have been used in the past, one at each end of the table. However, these apparatuses are expensive, very power consuming and increase the force applied to the crops by only about 35%.
It would be desirable to provide a device which would significantly increase the net force applied to such crops without consuming a great deal of power.